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Abstract:
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Although they have developed very much in isolation from each other, we argue the theory of
entrepreneurship and the economic theory of the firm are closely related, and each has much to
learn from the other. In particular, the notion of entrepreneurship as judgment associated with
Frank Knight and some Austrian school economists aligns naturally with the theory of the firm.
In this perspective, the entrepreneur needs a firm, that is, a set of alienable assets he controls, to
carry out his function. We further show how this notion of judgment adds to the key themes in
the modern theory of the firm (i.e., the existence, boundaries, and internal organization). In our
approach, resource uses are not data, but are created as entrepreneurs envision new ways of
using assets to produce goods. The entrepreneur’s decision problem is aggravated by the fact
that capital assets are heterogeneous. Asset ownership facilitates experimenting
entrepreneurship: Acquiring a bundle of property rights is a low cost means of carrying out
commercial experimentation. In this approach, the existence of the firm may be understood in
terms of limits to the market for judgment relating to novel uses of heterogeneous assets; and the
boundaries of the firm, as well as aspects of internal organization, may be understood as being
responsive to entrepreneurial processes of experimentation.
Key words: Entrepreneurship, heterogeneous assets, judgment, ownership, firm boundaries,
internal organization.
JEL Codes: B53, D23, L2 |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
